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Ulysses Klaw (Earth-616)
KLAW Real Name: Ulysses Klaw Nicknames: No known nicknames Former Aliases: No known former aliases Other Current Aliases: No other known current aliases Occupation: Ex-scientist, professional criminal Legal Status: Citizen of the Netherlands with criminal record Identity: Publicly known Marital Status: Single Group Affiliation: Former member of the second Masters of Evil, ally of Solarr, Molecule Man II, and Doctor Doom Base of Operations: Mobile Place of Birth: Vlaardingen, Netherlands Known Relatives: No known relatives First Appearance: FANTASTIC FOUR #53 Origin: Origin unknown. History: Ulysses Klaw was a physicist working in the field of applied sonics at the Technical University at Delft, who had designed a sound transducer able to convert sound waves into physical mass. The theoretical element necessary to make his device work was Vibranium, a substance known to exist only in certain meteoric deposits in a small African nation. Desperate for a sample, Klaw organized a team of mercenaries to help him seize the element from the African tribe who guarded it, the Wakandas. When T'Chaka, the leader of the Wakandan cult of the Black Panther, refused to yield any of the metal from the sacred mound, Klaw ordered his men to kill him. Witnessing his father's death, T'Chaka's adolescent son T'Challa seized Klaw's sonic blaster weapon and aimed it at the marauders, shattering Klaw's right hand with one burst and scattering his troops with a second. Driven away, Klaw vowed to return and wreak vengeance. When he reached civilization, Klaw had his mangled hand amputated and fitted with a claw-like prosthetic device into which he built a sonic-force blaster. Ten years later, he mounted a second attack on the Wakandas. He was opposed by the Fantastic Four and T'Challa, the Black Panther, who had succeeded his father as ruler. Thwarted again, Klaw leaped into his massive sonic converter device (the Vibranium for which he had acquired criminally on the open market), hoping to gain superhuman powers to combat his foes. His gamble was successful and Klaw was transformed into a creature whose body was composed of "living sound." In battle with the Fantastic Four, Klaw was pummeled into unconsciousness by Mister Fantastic wearing Vibranium knuckle guards. Taken to prison, Klaw was soon freed by the Crimson Cowl, an alias of Ultron, and invited to join the second Masters of Evil. The Masters of Evil took the Avengers captive, but they later escaped. Klaw was subdued by a kick from his old foe, the Black Panther. Too powerful to be imprisoned by conventional means, Klaw escaped and freed some of his cronies in the second Masters of Evil. A second foray against the Avengers was less successful than the first and Klaw was again subdued. Managing to escape custody again, Klaw journey back to Wakanda where he helped steal a device able to augment the mental-disintegrating property of a Vibranium-alloy. Encountering the Thing, the Human Torch, and the Black Panther, Klaw was defeated when the Thing crushed his prosthetic hand. After rebuilding the device, Klaw joined forces with the murderous Solarr and trapped the Avengers within a solid sound barrier. Klaw threatened to execute the Avengers if the Black Panther did not abdicate the throne of Wakanda to him. The Panther managed to subdue Klaw and Solarr before he could make good his threat. Klaw was freed from prison by a member of the extra dimensional race of Sheenarians, who wished him to use his sonic powers to help open a dimensional portal big enough for their invading armada to enter Earth. Klaw agreed and after a skirmish with Ka-Zar in London, traveled with the Sheenarian to the Savage Land where there was a Vibranium deposit necessary to create the portal. After Ka-Zar repulsed the invaders, Klaw fled into the Sheenarian dimension, and unable to salvage anything substantial from his allies, used their technology to return to Earth. Materializing in the Florida Everglades (where the Earth's Nexus of Realities is located), Klaw happened upon the wand of the second Molecule Man. Helping the Molecule Man find a body to possess, Klaw and his new ally traveled to New York to wreak revenge on their common enemy, the Fantastic Four. Klaw was subdued by the visiting Impossible Man. Klaw realized that his sonic powers had been waning over the years and undertook an elaborate scheme to manipulate a youth gang into restoring him to full power. Although the scheme worked, Klaw was overpowered by the Black Panther, who turned his handblaster on Klaw himself. Klaw's sound-body was apparently disintegrated. Klaw's prosthetic device was recovered and taken to Project: Pegasus, a government energy research facility, for analysis and safekeeping. When Solarr, another ward of the Project, was inadvertently freed from his containment cell, he sought an ally to help him escape from the heavily-fortified facility. Finding Klaw's hand-blaster, Solarr thought that the Project was responsible for killing him and threw the device angrily against the wall. The sonic vibrations of the impact provided the necessary energy for Klaw, whose mental essence had found refuge inside the prosthetic device, to reconstitute his solid sound body. The two criminals' attempt to escape was thwarted, however, and Klaw collapsed back into his sonic device. Project scientists soon revived him again in order to study him. Weeks later, when the mutant Dazzler was at Project: Pegasus to have her sound-transducing powers tested, Klaw tricked the mutant into helping him escape confinement. Realizing her mistake, the Dazzler used her body's sound absorbing abilities to siphon Klaw's energies totally into herself. Klaw's mental essence, rendered unconscious, was also transferred to the Dazzler. When the Dazzler expended the vast quantity of energy that is Klaw while aboard the starship of the world devourer Galactus, the advanced alien circuitry of Galactus's craft absorbed it and Klaw's mental essence. Some time later, Galactus was among the many beings assembled for study by the omnipotent extra dimensional Beyonder. Needing to consume the energy of a planet-sized object, Galactus sent for his solar system sized home base, docked to which was his starship. Doctor Doom, another of the beings abducted by the Beyonder, stole aboard Galactus's home base to find weaponry to battle first Galactus then the Beyonder. While trying to fathom the alien technology, Doom used Galactus's machines to bodily resurrect Klaw, whose mental essence had been flitting through the circuitry of the base. As a result of his experience in disembodied form, Klaw was mildly insane when Doom restored his form. Doom nevertheless exploited the fact that Klaw's energy-form was attuned to Galactus's ship and carved up Klaw's non-organic body into special lenses. These lenses enabled Doom to siphon the energy released when Galactus converted his home base into fuel succeeding in the audacious scheme, Doom attacked the Beyonder and the Beyonder gave up his power to Doom in order to see what Doom would do with it. Doom believed he had totally eradicated the Beyonder from existence, but the Beyonder instead took refuge inside Klaw's now restored energy form. After witnessing how Doom handled his omnipotent power, the Beyonder manipulated Doom into returning it. The Beyonder then dispatched Doom and Klaw back to Earth. Most recently, Klaw was among the villains assembled by the newest Crimson Cowl in the newest incarnation of the Masters of Evil, only to be ultiamtely defeated by the Thunderbolts. Klaw's current whereabouts and mental condition are unknown. Height: 5'11" Weight: 175 lbs (80 kg) Eyes: Red Hair: None Unusual Features: No unusual features Strength Level: Klaw possesses superhuman strength enabling him to lift (press) approximately 5 tons when his body is fully energized. Known Powers: Klaw possesses a number of superhuman physical powers stemming from his body's conversion into an extra-physical energy form. In some as yet unknown way, Klaw's body is a stable energy form possessing mass and sentience. This form is not bound by conventional human limitations: Klaw does not need food or sleep, nor can he be harmed by penetration wounds, disease, shock of impact, oxygen deprivation, etc. Klaw's body can in fact be vivisected into many pieces without killing him and these pieces can be fused back together by simply touching them to one another. He can only exist in a medium that allows the propagation of sound waves: he would dissipate in a vacuum. Since his body is quasi-solid, he can be touched by physical objects. Although it would cause no permanent damage, a sufficiently powerful blow may not only stagger him but cause temporary unconsciousness. (This occurs when the impact creates a counter frequency that is disharmonious to that of his body.) Klaw can maintain his "sonic state" indefinitely. He cannot transform back into his original organic state. Klaw can bodily transform ambient sound for a variety of uses through his prosthetic sound converter. He can' project waves of intense, high-volume sound (maximum loudness: 170 decibels), capable of deafening anyone within a .6 mile radius. He can convert sound into controlled blasts of concussive force with a maximum force equivalent to 3,000 pounds of TNT. He can also create 3-dimensional, mobile sound/mass constructs possessing such complex forms as those of animals. He shapes and animates these constructs by mental command and they only remain in existence for as long as he wills them. Not possessed of the sentient life force that his own sonic form is, the constructs are not nearly as invulnerable. Klaw's major vulnerability is his susceptibility to Vibranium, the substance that triggered his original transformation. Because Vibranium absorbs all forms of energy including sound, the nearness of a certain quantity of Vibranium can cause the mass of his energy form to become unstable and collapse. Usually when this occurs Klaw's body is absorbed by his own prosthetic sound converter. Known Abilities: No known abilities. Equipment: No known equipment. Transportation: No known transportation. Weapons: Klaw wears a prosthetic device composed of molybdenum steel which contains a miniature version of his sound converter machine. The artificial hand is attached to his sound/mass body by as yet unknown means. Klaw activates the circuitry of the device by pseudo-cybernetic commands. 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